Dim Sum Dancing

A big, family style dim sum restaurant is where most people go to eat away their hangovers. There's no better fix for the the bleary-eyed masses than chicken feet wheeled straight out to their Lazy Susan-adorned tables. But in a brilliant business move, the folks down at Chinatown dim sum banquet hall 88 Palace have decided to not only cure hungover misery, but to cause it.

Starting last fall, 88 Palace's cavernous restaurant space has turned itself into a riotous club on select nights. Revelers enter through what looks like a Chinese mall, ascend a flight of stairs and find themselves in the midst of one of Manhattan's more frenetic dance floors. The music veers toward the electronic, though when we stumbled upon it during last week's CMJ festival, upstart rock bands were also playing the eccentric, floor-through space.
If the music and hipster-heavy crowd don't transport you, the golden dragons lining the walls will. There's also a full bar to whisk you away. And if you insist on lighting up, the mall's nifty location directly under the Manhattan Bridge provides shelter from whatever storms come Chinatown's way.

88 Palace not only restores our faith in mall entertainment (we're looking at you Debbie Gibson), but let's us nosh and hazily recall a good night's memories in the same place they were formed.